Plurality
by Lone.L
Summary: If searching for small victories is all I can do, then I will willingly take that chance knowing it means being one step closer to you, the one I love and hate at the same time. NaruSaku onesided


I'll get to some non-angsty, non-onesided stuff eventually, promise! This "takes place" in the anime's current moment, i.e. after episode 45.

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**Plurality**

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There isn't a thing about you I don't both love and hate in some respect, because I've had a long time to think about why each makes you so amazing—and why each makes you so heartless. But hate is only a byproduct of love, and it's far less meaningful. You haunt my thoughts, but at the same time you brighten them. Your presence brings me permeating sadness but also overwhelming joy. I find myself looking at you, but it's hard to tell if it's with remorse, admiration, or the longing that is both the cause and a product of both. 

Yes, that longing, and the knowledge that it means nothing to you.

But I do what I can to tell you, to at least keep close, so that maybe someday you'll see, even if it relegates me to nothing more than a means to an end, a common heart and a fierce strength in your desire to retrieve Sasuke. It's better than nothing, so I resign myself to the fact that it can't be helped—_shikata ga nai_. I can neither imagine nor remember how I got snared in your net, but I have to think it's more than your beauty, that you actually are kinder than I'd like to admit, more fun to be around than I'd like to think about—because if I do, the gap widens, the longing intensifies, and I'm left to searching for small victories reminiscent of the few times you smile at me or call my name seeking real conversation.

These days I look at you only because you don't look back, and I talk to you only because you don't listen and hardly reply. Easy, I think, and anything to keep the hope alive. To think about you is to put an enormous damper on my entire being, even though the rest of my existence is so happy, but to think about you continues to put a smile on my face. Caught in the currents of a ravaging paradox, a catch-22, I float along aimlessly and look for small victories, because for brief moments they make it all right. I feel compelled to wonder if you realize it when they happen, even though I know you don't. And if you don't realize, there's no point in caring, right, Sakura? But those moments are almost as beautiful as you, so I hang on to them.

I want to feel, though, that you care, that I mean something to you, even if you make it painfully clear that it's not likely, because underneath it all something about you just feels so right. If I could explain it, I would, and then just maybe you'd understand.

There are times when I awake with an uneasy feeling that I carry with me through the tiring day and into the lonely night, walking but not moving, doing something but feeling nothing, until I'm too exhausted to think of much anymore. Then, burdened by the pain of an unrequited longing, I close my eyes as I drift into a short sleep and hopefully dream of you.

And when I wake up, the realization that it was only a dream returns me to the same cycle. But when the last shreds of hope seem lost just as I am, you'll look me in the eye and say something genuine, ask what the matter is, notice some small change in my appearance; suddenly a different cycle begins and I'm refreshed and caught up in you again, hoping against hope, thinking that this means you've finally seen; and when I come to in some battle-worn clearing with my head cradled in your arms, feel your tears shed for me on my cheek, I can't help but smile as I think to myself that maybe, just maybe, there's a small chance.

Small victories, right?

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**A/N:** Short, yes, very short, my apologies. I wrote this from my feelings at some random point today and thought it would translate well to NaruSaku (okay, I wrote it for them all along). I promise I'll eventually try something new besides angsty shorts, but this tiny first-person note-esque thing was a bit of a change for something still the same. I liked it, anyway. Review if you can, please. 

**LL**


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